1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a digital signal recording and reproducing method and a recording medium used for the same method. More specifically, this invention relates to a digital signal recording and reproducing method for recording and reproducing packet digital signals in and from a recording medium. Further, this invention relates to a recording medium on which packet digital signals are recorded by the recording method.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In general, digital signals are recorded and reproduced in and from a recording medium in unit of data block. In this case, the data storing region of the data block is of fixed length. When the digital signals are packet signals, the digital signals have been so far recorded and reproduced by determining the packet length according to the size of the data storing region. Further, the digital signals have been recorded and reproduced by setting the track size (the number of data blocks on one track) to an optimum value.
Recently, various digital broadcasting television standards and other digital signal transmission standards of different packet sizes have been proposed. And, there is the case where digital signals of different packet sizes are recorded and reproduced by the same recording and reproducing apparatus in accordance with one physical track format.
In this case, the track size and the data block length may be optimum for one transmission standard. However, since only one physical track format is provided, the number of data blocks for constituting one track is not appropriate for the packet size of another transmission standard. A fraction is thus produced in the number of data blocks with decrease in recording efficiency. Further, when packet data are allocated to the data blocks of each track, the addressing and buffering operations are complicated.
To overcome these problems, in general, the digital signals are recorded and reproduced by use of a special recording and reproducing apparatus conforming to the respective standard. In this case, however, it is not economical to record and reproduce digital signals by use of only a dedicated recording and reproducing apparatus. Therefore it is desirable to record and reproduce digital signals of various standards of different packet sizes, respectively by use of the same single recording and reproducing apparatus.